CIMdata Industry and Market Forum: Major Cloud PLM Trend is to Rethink Everything

I’m coming back from Ann Arbor Michigan where I attended CIMdata North American PLM industry and market forum. You can check out the agenda here. The forum is designed exclusively for solution and service providers in PLM economy.

The following picture is one sliders CIMdata presentation about 40 years of PLM economy.

I’m still digesting market numbers and stats presented during the forum. Today, I wanted to share information I captured about cloud PLM discussion. CIMdata made cloud PLM research earlier this year and conclusions are coming from that research. It includes observation about market dynamics related to development of cloud PLM technologies and solutions.

The following slide is my favorite. And the reason for that cloud is bringing huge transformation to the market and to the industry. It goes much beyond cloud PLM version circa 2011-2016, which focused on replacing on premise infrastructure with cloud hosted PLM systems. Cloud is forcing us to rethink everything related to data management, collaboration, digital processes and transformation.

The next slide is a reminder that manufacturing industry is coming late to the cloud journey with PLM and engineering solution. 78% of companies are using some cloud software and solution in their business. A combination of Salesforce as a leader with “None” as a second categories shows an interesting status quo. It is space with huge potential. Also, we can see that most of cloud-based solution are coming from CRM/ERP domain.

It is important to see what benefits cloud can bring to companies and what are concerns of users when they think about cloud adoption.

Cloud brings real transformation to manufacturing companies. But it comes as a transformation and brings casualties. I captured two “dead bodies” in CIMdata presentation. 1/ process as we know is dead. 2./ File system as we know is dead as well.

The last question or comment I captured – when will cloud be “material” in PLM?

What is my conclusion?  Manufacturing industry is full speed ahead to future with cloud. But the road is bumpy. Both groups PLM vendors and industrial customers invested a lot in pre-cloud era and they have lot of to lose. So, when cloud will be material in PLM? When industry will left behind Excel and CAD files I guess. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Want to learn more about PLM? Check out my new PLM Book website.

Disclaimer: I’m co-founder and CEO of OpenBOM developing cloud based bill of materials and inventory management tool for manufacturing companies, hardware startups and supply chain. My opinion can be unintentionally biased.